Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Non-news drown out real ones

Recent weeks have been no exception to the nauseating coverage of non-news that our Delhi based media seems to be so fond of. All the irresponsible hoopla can be termed as juvenile reaction at best. Editorial responsibilities have long been relinquished in favour of SMS polls and the OMG generation is transfixed.

While feckless journos spread panic reporting swine flu outbreak and wearing masks on TV and attributed unrelated deaths to the flu and also completely over blowing the magnitude of the outbreak, the UBS and the US reached a deal. The UBS agreed to co-operate with the IRS of the US in helping it go after illegal money hidden away in secret accounts. The IRS is seeking 52,000 names from the UBS to go after. Already, 5,000 names will be handed over to the US authorities. And the IRS tax net has widened to go as far as Hong Kong. Yet, such significant events are burried under hysterically drummed up issues. Why is India not doing something similar? Why is the GoI not asked to go after tax evaders? The manufactured panic over swine flu helped drown it out. Singh is still the King.

And if you were to believe our newsmen, a certain Hindi film actor being held for questioning at an US airport was an outrage worthy of diplomatic action. Never mind that it is hardly a case unique to this "celebrity". Many others have had to go through the same. Examples include, Ted kennedy, Bob Dylan, Irfan Khan etc. But the inaction, even on the diplomatic front, by the Manmohan Singh govt. over the Mumbai attacks by Pakistani jihadis seems to be fine. Loss of over 300 innocent lives in a terrorist attacks counts for much less than an hour of a celebrity detention. That's the real outrage.

And while all this allegedly "racist" saga was being hyped up on our TV sets, our "oppressed" "brothers" from the "religion of peace" were rampaging on Janmashtani, destroying Lord Krishna idols and attacking processions celebrating the day. It seems Hindus can never live in peace in their own land. This incidence involved Muslims, who are a majority in the Shahpur-Nagoriwad area of Gujarat, burning houses of the Hindus, pelting stones at them and causing much grief in general. Yet, national news cameras would not care to peep. Contrast that with the moral policing incidence of Mangalore. Social justice demands secular censorship.

2 comments:

Our dear media's preferences are a bit different. Micheal Jackson's funeral was more important than Mysore riots. Of all the things in the world they chose to show the gay parade for days.Please dont ask those poor fellows to show pro-Hindu news; they have been calling anything pro-Hindu as communal. So if they show anything pro-Hindu, they will have to label themselves as communal :)

We should never be proud of Kerala's literacy rate.1. We never take the official statistic at face value considering that Communists are notorious for cooking up statistics.2. Besides, considering that Kerala is the hub of the most insidious Islamist-Communist alliance, it only means Kerala is producing more efficient/productive/educated anti-national Islamists and Communists.